


Pen to Paper

by Neyiea



Series: Golden [2]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arkham Asylum, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jerome Valeska Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:07:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26721130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neyiea/pseuds/Neyiea
Summary: Bruce writes a letter as promised, and the world around him shifts because of it.He will not let Jerome have no one.
Relationships: Alfred Pennyworth & Bruce Wayne, Jerome Valeska & Bruce Wayne
Series: Golden [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1944628
Comments: 47
Kudos: 121





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Even if I don't end up writing any more after this I really wanted to eventually write Jerome receiving Bruce's letter, so, here we are. My hurting, lonely boys will have each other now and I am emotional not only due to that, but also because I am punching myself in the father-son dynamic feels.

Bruce’s eyes are still pink-rimmed and bloodshot by the time they make it back to Wayne Manor after midnight. He’d been quiet on the car ride home, too quiet, a stifling blanket of silence dropping over him as he stared out the window without truly seeing. Alfred had constantly been checking on him, heart in his throat as he wondered if Bruce’s thoughts would reduce him to tears again.

Bruce shaking in his arms and crying, inconsolable, had felt like the worst kind of memory. Except it wasn’t a memory at all and it was happening all over again, and Alfred was just as much at a loss as what to do about it now as he had last year when the unthinkable happened and the foundation of Bruce’s entire world crumbled from beneath his feet. All he could do was provide comfort and what little reassurances that he could, which didn’t feel like enough because Bruce had still been crying when Alfred had carried him to the car. Hot tears had fallen against Alfred’s neck and he’d held Bruce tight, just as tight as he had when he tore Bruce off of that stage and held him in his arms; safe, safe, safe at last because Alfred would die before he let Bruce get hurt. 

But Bruce was hurting, even now. Maybe not physically, but the obvious anguish and sorrow emanating from him undoubtedly ached much more than any cut. Bruce was hurting, and Alfred couldn’t bear to see him undergoing any kind of pain.

He wishes he’d been quieter when speaking to Detective Gordon on the phone, but it’s far too late for him to do anything about it now. Bruce had overheard, Bruce had decided to go to the station, and once Bruce stubbornly set his mind on something Alfred really couldn’t do anything but watch over him as closely as possible.

But watching him from behind the glass had felt like too far away. It had been too far away. He should have put his foot down. He should have hung up on Gordon the moment that he mentioned that the teenaged psychopath with a growing body-count who’d held a knife to Bruce’s neck was requesting to speak with him in-person. Instead Alfred had watched Bruce’s tender, bleeding heart shatter to pieces for that very same teenager, and all of his uncomfortable feelings and protective instincts had raised just like his hackles had before the boys’ conversation had even started. 

All he ever wanted was for Bruce to be happy and safe and know that he was loved; for Bruce to have a chance at a normal childhood; for the traumas of his life to stop smothering him like a sharp, bitter wind trying to snuff out a candle. He just wanted Bruce to have something to smile about.

He would give anything for Bruce to smile instead of cry. 

Alfred exits the car and walks over to the other side to open Bruce’s door, and Bruce’s hands fumble tiredly with his seatbelt before his legs swing out, one by one.

Words catch in Alfred’s throat—you don’t have to do it, you don’t have to write him—but just like he’d known that he wouldn’t have been able to stop Bruce from going to the station, he knows he won’t be able to stop him from this, and he thinks that asking him not to write a letter would only hurt Bruce more. Something had happened in that interrogation room; something that Alfred couldn’t completely understand even if he’d been able to watch and hear the entire thing. The soft speaking, the recoiling, the assurances that Bruce wouldn’t hurt Jerome—although Alfred was set on hating the teenager on principle what he and Gordon had witnessed and the conclusions they’d drawn from it was almost enough to make his own heart ache.

The world was a cruel place. Especially to children. 

But there is still a piece of gauze taped to Bruce’s neck, hiding the cut that had been traced there by a knife as his body was used as a shield, and no matter what Jerome had gone through that didn’t take away the things that he’d done, or the things that he’d meant to do. Bruce was kind and forgiving; a too-big heart with too-much empathy. 

Alfred was not. He couldn’t afford to be. His care and compassion were fixated on one person, now, and one person only.

Bruce finally slips out of the car, briefly swaying on his feet, and Alfred wraps a steadying arm around him as he shuts the door.

“It’s late, Master B,” he says as they walk up the front steps. “You need to rest. You’ve gone through a lot today.”

He’s gone through too much, today.

Too much, in general.

Alfred hopes that someday the world will stop throwing Bruce head-first into hardship.

“I want to write a letter before I go to sleep,” Bruce mumbles, eyes half-open. “I promised that I would.”

“It can wait until morning,” Alfred tells him softly as they make their way into the dark house. The lights of the foyer had been left on, but everything beyond is cast into shadow until Alfred hits the switch for the lights in the hallway. The Manor feels vast and terribly empty. Alfred already knows that he won’t be able to sleep in his own room tonight, so far away that he wouldn’t be able to hear if Bruce cried out in his sleep. He’d had nightmares after the murder of his parents. What if he had nightmares tonight, and Alfred wasn’t close enough to realize?

“I want to do it as soon as possible. I don’t want him to think that I was lying.” Bruce stands still beside him, eyes rooted to the floor, and he very slowly raises a hand to lay overtop of the one Alfred had rested on his shoulder. His hand is so small. His touch is so gentle. Alfred remembers, with an abruptness that nearly punches the air from his lungs, that this is what Jerome had flinched away from. That Bruce is who Jerome had flinched away from.

“Alfred.” Bruce’s voice wavers in a way that breaks his heart. “Why is it so difficult for people to help others?”

Alfred wishes there were an easy way to answer that question. The world was cruel, but people could be even crueler. 

“Not everyone is good like you, Bruce. Not everyone cares about others enough to try and help them.” Alfred squeezes his shoulder lightly, hoping that the touch conveys at least a fraction of what he wants it to; reassurance and support and love. “Sometimes you remind me so much of your parents, especially your mother.” His throat is tight, but he continues on, the memory of Bruce gently reaching out to hold the hands of the boy who had meant to kill him flashing in his mind’s eye. “She cared for people very deeply.”

“Do you think that my parents—” Bruce’s voice cracks and Alfred’s heart aches anew. “—that they’d be proud of me?”

“Of course they would, Bruce.” Alfred kneels before him again, taking Bruce’s small face in his hands. “They would, and I’m proud of you, too.” Maybe he doesn’t fully understand how Bruce could care so much for someone who’d hurt him, but he’s proud all the same. Acts of kindness could change lives, and Alfred was well-aware of it. “It takes someone special to care, Bruce, about everyone and anyone.” Even the ones who no one else had ever cared about, he doesn’t say, because to remind Bruce of Jerome’s words at this moment would feel cruel. “Your parents would be so, so proud of you. Brave, stupidly reckless boy.” Alfred bites back tears of his own as he remembers what it had felt like to have Bruce pulled away from him and into the arms of someone who was so obviously dangerous. “You mustn’t throw yourself into harm’s way like that again, even if it’s to save me. The world will always be a better place with someone like you in it.”

Bruce leans into his hands. “I’m sorry for making you worry, Alfred,” he murmurs, “but I couldn’t let you get hurt.”

Brave, stupidly reckless, unspeakably kind boy.

What had the world done to deserve him?

Alfred has no words, so he wraps his arms around Bruce and tucks him close, and Bruce’s hands immediately settle on his back.

“I’m going to write a letter, Alfred,” he says, voice muffled. “Will you post it for me first-thing tomorrow morning?”

Alfred thinks about Jerome flinching away from Bruce. Thinks of Jerome’s certainty that he’d be meeting his end, soon. Thinks of how hard Bruce had cried as he pleaded with Detective Gordon to make sure that Jerome was kept safe.

“I’ll do you one better, Master B,” he promises. “In the morning I’ll deliver it to Arkham myself.”

“Thank you, Alfred.” Bruce’s hands twist into the back of his jacket. “I love you.”

Alfred holds Bruce even tighter. 

“I love you, too.”

x-x-x

Bruce has a pen, and paper, and so many words that could be written down that he hardly even knows where to start. He shuts his eyes and thinks of those ten minutes that he and Jerome had shared, thinks of “But nobody’s ever helped me before. Ever.”, thinks of the emotion that had sparked to life in his chest when Jerome had recoiled from his touch as if he thought Bruce might hurt him.

He thinks of “Don’t forget me.”

I won’t, he inwardly vows as he puts pen to paper. I’ll never forget. I promise.

I won’t let you have no one.

Jerome, he prints, I hope that you’re alright.

Everything begins to flow a little easier.

A few tears roll down his cheeks as he writes, wetting the paper and smudging the ink, but he carries on because he feels as though he can’t afford to stop or to start over. He wants Jerome to get this letter. He wants Jerome to write him back. He wants so badly for Jerome to know that he is not so very alone. No one had ever saved Jerome until Bruce. He had done it before, and he could do it again. Bruce thinks of Jerome’s hands—hands that had held him against his will, hands that had killed more than once—slowly stretching out as far as they could go so that Bruce might reach for him again. 

He hadn’t recoiled at the second brushing of their fingertips, but there was something stiff in his demeanor, as if he didn’t know what to do. Bruce’s heart ached as he wondered how many years it had been since Jerome began to expect violence instead of gentleness. 

Bruce had held Jerome’s hands the way that he might cradle a baby bird; scared to move too fast, to cause fear, to cause hurt. And perhaps it should have been ridiculous, for Bruce to be so careful with someone who’d done as much damage as Jerome gleefully had, but it hadn’t felt that way. Not at all. Not when Jerome’s expression was so open. Not when his voice wavered as he said that no one would care when—not if, when, as if the entire thing was already settled—he disappeared.

No one had ever saved Jerome before, but Bruce would save him again if he could. Over and over, until Jerome knew with certainty that Bruce would always help him.

Bruce thinks, again, of sadness and pain and loneliness. He thinks, again, of the one constant in his life which had kept him from spiraling so far into despair that he’d be permanently branded by it. He thinks of the sheen to Jerome’s eyes before the door between them had shut. He thinks of how he’d had Alfred to hold him and console him as he cried in the aftermath, but Jerome had been alone all over again when their time was up.

He wishes that they’d had more time. When he’d stepped into that interrogation room he’d thought that he’d be toyed with, mocked, or told that what he’d done hadn’t mattered.

But it had. It mattered to them both. It mattered more than anything.

Bruce adds a final line, heart heavy in his chest, before he signs his name. He folds the paper and slides it inside of an envelope, writing Jerome’s name one last time. He stares at the envelope for a few moments, even though he’s tired and should have been asleep hours ago, because he…

He hopes…

His eyes burn, and he rubs at them ineffectively. 

Jerome had seemed so sure that he would die. Detective Gordon hadn’t appeared surprised, and he’d promised to do everything that he could, but would everything he could do be enough? Would everything that Bruce could do be enough?

He hopes that tomorrow isn’t too late. He hopes that it’s never too late. 

I saved him, he thinks as he lays in bed, exhaustion finally pulling him under. I saved him. 

I saved him in the way that I couldn’t save—

When he wakes in the morning the envelope is gone, and in its place is a note from Alfred.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3

It’s early when Alfred makes his way past Arkham’s main gate, Bruce’s letter tucked in the inner pocket of his jacket, along with a few other things. Three pre-addressed envelopes, already stamped and filled with two sheets of paper each, that he’d gotten ready while waiting for his morning tea to steep. He wasn’t sure how easy it would be for an Arkham inmate to send outgoing mail, and Bruce’s heart would surely break if he had to wait too long for a letter back, so Alfred had decided to remove as many obstacles as possible. 

He’d slept poorly throughout the night, waking up every few hours and unable to settle again until he had opened the door to Bruce’s bedroom to make sure that he was still asleep, that he was still safe, that no one had come to take him or hurt him while he was at his most vulnerable. The sunrise was barely a suggestion of pink on the horizon when he’d slipped into Bruce’s room one final time, softly brushing hair away from Bruce’s lax face before taking the letter from his desk and replacing it with a note that said he’d be back as quickly as he could.

The asylum is eerily quiet as he steps inside, footsteps echoing down dingy, poorly-lit hallways as he makes his way towards what appears to be a security desk, staffed by a lone person who seems more interested in flipping through a magazine than checking any of the feeds from the security cameras littered throughout the building. Even from his vantage point Alfred can see that some of the cameras are so poorly maintained that their recordings are incomprehensible.

If Martha Wayne knew that this place had opened up again while still in such flagrant disrepair… 

Alfred stops in front of the desk and says, as polite as he can manage, “Excuse me.”

What follows is a too-long, somewhat infuriating conversation. The envelope isn’t properly addressed so technically they can’t accept it into their mailing system. Visiting hours where he’d be able to hand it over personally didn’t start until noon. New-intakes weren’t supposed to receive anything from the outside until their meds were ‘figured out’ just in case they were sent something that could trigger an aggressive episode. Alfred ends up having to talk to the head of security, and then escalating the situation to Warden Reed, because he knows that Bruce has his heart set on Jerome receiving this letter as quickly as possible and Alfred will not fail him.

It’s the Wayne family name that seals the deal. Over the landline that he’d been passed by the first security guard the Warden’s voice becomes overly-friendly as soon as Alfred pointedly mentions who he works for. He hates that it had come to that, but it’s not entirely unexpected.

This place… It didn’t look right, and it obviously wasn’t run right. If he hadn’t called the Warden for permission, he likely would have been able to get in with simple cash bribery.

And that both angers and horrifies him, because if he could get in with bribery, whoever might have stolen the madmen from Arkham in the first place—the force that was ultimately behind Jerome’s pointed targeting of Bruce—could get in, too. It’s not that Alfred wasn’t fully aware that Jerome wouldn’t exactly be secure once he was no longer in the relative safety of Gordon’s custody, but it was another thing entirely to think that he could be murdered so easily, so quickly, by someone pulling a few short strings. 

Alfred follows the guard from the security desk deeper into the building, sure that he can still feel Bruce shaking in his arms and crying against his neck. 

This place is under-staffed, isn’t safe, isn’t right. 

His heart sinks in his chest as he wonders if he’s already too late. 

The guard eventually stops in front of a cell after leading him past several empty rooms, and Alfred briefly looks up at security cameras whose cracked lenses look completely dead until a loud slam makes his gaze snap back to where the guard had struck their baton against the door in a violent wake-up call. Alfred is unable to hold back the frown that tugs firmly at the corners of his mouth. 

Jerome had flinched away from Bruce as if Bruce would hurt him. 

Had he ever been hurt in here?

“What the fuck?” A familiar voice from inside the cell groans. He is alive, after all, and Alfred actually feels relief when last night at the benefit he would have felt the exact same way for the complete opposite reason. Jerome’s tone is not the same as it had been when he was alone with Bruce, not in the slightest. It is rough and crude, with none of the vulnerability that had been so obvious eight hours ago. Alfred sees a flash of red hair through the small, barred window as Jerome shuffles forward to the door. “I never got wake-up calls before.”

“Visitor,” the guard states gruffly as they step back.

Jerome looks at Alfred, and for the second before recognition sets in his face is impassive, almost chillingly unfeeling. Then his eyes widen and his gaze darts down, looking left and right before shooting back up again, an obvious question burning in the depths of them even if he doesn’t voice it.

He hadn’t seen Bruce at first, when Bruce had followed behind Detective Gordon into the interrogation room. 

“He’s not here,” Alfred tells him, and Jerome’s expression immediately shutters into impassiveness again. Perhaps he is expecting Alfred to tell him that Bruce will never write to him, or something equally foolish. “But he was up until nearly one in the morning writing you this.” He holds up the letter and Jerome—

Blinks as if startled. As if touched. As if so used to disappointment that someone keeping a promise was just as unexpected as an outright surprise. 

Alfred steps forward and the letter slides through a gap in the bars. When Jerome takes hold of it Alfred can tell that his hand is very subtly shaking. 

“Downgraded from a butler to a mailman, huh?”

His tone is light. His eyes are glossy. He’s holding the letter tight, crinkling the paper of the envelope, as if he’s afraid that Alfred is cruelly going to try and yank it right back out of his hand. When Alfred lets go Jerome quickly pulls it all the way inside, holding it to his chest as if it’s something precious.

And it is precious, isn’t it?

Alfred—who cannot be as kind as Bruce, nor as forgiving as Bruce. Who was set on hating Jerome on principle, if not for everything else that the teenager had done than at least for threatening Bruce’s life—finds the sharp retort on his tongue dying out. 

“Just this once,” Alfred tells him, voice low. He reaches into his pocket for the pre-addressed envelopes. “After this the both of you will have to wait for the post just like everyone else.”

He holds out the other envelopes and after a moment of silent consideration—as if he’s expecting some sort of catch, some sort of trap—Jerome takes them, too, though he doesn’t grip them nearly as tightly as he had Bruce’s letter, and then—

There’s a muffled sound, a cry of pain, a dull thump. Alfred turns just fast enough to see the security guard drop to the floor before an inmate with a knife rushes towards him, arm raising.

Alfred ducks and weaves. The knife misses him, but the man’s empty fist lands a strike against his shoulder before the knife arcs towards him a second time. Alfred jumps back, then surges forward to punch his assailant in the throat.

The man stumbles back, choking, and Alfred rushes him, knocking the knife out of his hand and kicking inward against the inmate’s knee. He falls to the floor and Alfred grabs him by the collar, landing two strikes against his face before his eyes roll back and Alfred’s clenched hands loosen.

As he slumps onto his side something jingles as it slips out of his pocket.

Keys.

Stolen, or given?

Alfred leaves the inmate behind to approach the guard, whose face is pale and pinched and whose fingers are red with the blood flowing from his injured side. Alfred takes the radio from the guard’s belt, calling in about the situation.

As he had thought, the security cameras here were dead.

Chance, or intentional?

It takes a minute for them to be reached, but soon the dingy hallway is swarming with several more guards and a man in a white coat who Alfred assumes is a doctor. They deal with the unconscious inmate and the injured guard, and Alfred turns his head to look upon the person who was likely the true target of this attack. 

Keys and a knife and malfunctioning cameras. It was only by chance that Alfred and the security guard were in this area. If they hadn’t been here…

From inside the cell Jerome stares at him, Bruce’s letter still clutched to his chest as if he means to guard it, as if he might have spent his last seconds alive as the other inmate opened his cell ripping open the envelope so that he could read whatever bits and pieces that he had time for. The idea of it—Jerome struggling to read anything before his end, Jerome’s last moments spent not laughing or mocking but desperately hanging on to one small, precious, good thing—makes Alfred feel sick. The idea of what Bruce’s reaction to any of this would be is enough to break his heart.

They lock eyes. 

Bruce has lost too much already, Alfred thinks, and if you die he’ll view that as a loss, too, because he’s good, and kind, and tender-hearted. 

Because he’s Bruce.

Alfred can still feel Bruce shaking and crying in his arms. He wants to forget what it had felt like. He wants it to never happen again. He knows that Detective Gordon is going to do all that he can to make sure Jerome doesn’t die because he’d made that promise to Bruce, but he couldn’t be here as a personal guard 24/7.

Bruce hadn’t asked the same promise of him, but he’d do it anyway. For Bruce’s sake.

Alfred would do anything for Bruce to smile instead of cry. 

Alfred steps closer to the cell door, ignoring the commotion behind him, and he feels his resolve turn to steel. Gordon could protect Jerome with his badge, and Alfred would protect him with the only thing that mattered in a facility like this.

Alfred wasn’t above bribery, if it got him what he needed, and he’s almost certain that bribery is the fastest way to get Jerome to a safer location within these—perhaps purposefully—poorly maintain halls. 

“I’m getting you out of here and into a wing where all the security cameras actually work.”

Jerome jolts—just slightly—at the words, as if he hadn’t expected to be spoken to. 

“Just because the cameras work doesn’t mean someone won’t come after me again,” he murmurs.

“Well, it’s a start, isn’t it?” Alfred takes another step closer, and Jerome’s eyes rove across his face, like he’s searching for something. “Read the letter,” Alfred tells him. “Write him back.”

“I don’t have a pen.”

Alfred purses his lips. He has one, tucked away in the pocket of his jacket, and he suspects that security wouldn’t take too kindly to him giving something that could feasibly be used to cause at least a small amount of harm if used with enough force to an inmate, but…

He turns, just to make sure no attention is being cast towards them, and then he takes the pen out of his pocket and hands it over before making to leave.

“Wait.”

He stops. Turns back.

Jerome doesn’t look at him, and maybe that’s why more emotion than before leaks into his voice. He was crass and disrespectful when interacting with others, from what Alfred had seen of him, with only one notable exception. Perhaps he is not looking at Alfred because to look at Alfred would be a reminder of the person who is not here. The only person worth being gentle with. 

“I’ll write back, but when you see him tell him—tell him—” Jerome’s eyes are fixated on the letter in his hand; there’s something raw in his expression that makes it very difficult not to pity him. “Tell him that I’m okay, and that I hope he’s okay, too.” And perhaps that is another reason why Jerome isn’t looking at Alfred as he makes his request. Jerome had been vulnerable around Bruce, had felt safe enough to show weakness around Bruce. In this moment of vulnerability Jerome would rather think of Bruce than look at Alfred.

Bruce had proven himself as someone worthy of trust, when no one else ever had. 

“I will,” Alfred promises. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3

Jerome sits in a cell nearly identical to the first one he’d been escorted into when he’d arrived at Arkham under the care of Detective Gordon. There are a few small differences which separate one from the other; the faded messages on the walls left by previous inmates, the fact that the cameras in the hallway outside actually work, and his closer proximity to a security desk. He doesn’t exactly feel safer, but his new digs certainly would make it at least a little more difficult for someone to get away with murdering him.

There had still been a puddle of the security guard’s blood on the floor when he’d been moved. During his first inhabitation of Arkham he might have openly laughed at such a thing, but the fact that it could have just as easily been his blood kept him quiet.

He’s lucky that the butler who’d obligingly acted as a mailman this morning was a lot more of a physical threat than Jerome would have expected him to be. He’s lucky that the butler had drawn the conclusion that Jerome’s life was worth going out of his way to protect, though Jerome is smart enough to realize that he wasn’t acting out of altruism, or for Jerome’s benefit.

Just like with Gordon’s promise to keep him safe, it all linked back to Bruce in the end. It was as if his goodness rubbed off on people. Or perhaps as if he was able to bring submerged goodness to the surface. Perhaps something locked away inside of Jerome—buried deep, deep down after years of hurt and suffering—had begun to come to the surface, too, after spending time in his company. The smothered gentleness and vulnerability which had only impeded him and made him a more susceptible target in his childhood had been drawn out by the one person who would not ever use those things against him.

A forgotten tendril of something _emotional_ and _weak_ had broken through the depravity and anger and violence that made up the barren wasteland that he had buried his too-short childhood underneath. It was defenceless and frail, something that could easily be pulled out by the root and cast aside to rot, either by himself or by those who surrounded him, but instead of destroying it Bruce had—Bruce had—

Jerome traces his fingers against his own name, written on the envelope that he hasn’t been able to take his attention off of for more than a few seconds at a time. 

Bruce had shown compassion and care, and other things which Jerome had long since forgotten the sensation and the name of, even though no one would have batted an eye if Bruce had been angry and unforgiving. Jerome hadn’t ever done anything to _deserve_ being saved. If anything he’d done the opposite.

But Bruce had thought that his life was worth saving, whether he had done anything to deserve it or not. Bruce thought that it was the right thing to do. Bruce would save him again, if he could. 

And he already had, hadn’t he? By keeping his promise and sending his letter. 

Jerome is settled inside of his new cell, now, and the hallway outside is silent. It wouldn’t be until after breakfast that he would be taken to his first session of therapy where during his previous stay here the questions lingered on his mother and his childhood, and Jerome would lie and lie and lie through his teeth in order to make himself into something more than what he was.

He wonders what the questions will linger on this time.

How did it feel, he imagines a faceless voice asking, how did it feel to be saved?

He slips a finger underneath the flap of the envelope and carefully drags the digit underneath, unsealing the paper.

It felt, he thinks distantly, like it was wrong, at first, because I didn’t understand what was happening, at first. No one’s ever saved me before, I didn’t know what it was supposed to feel like. 

And when you understood what was happening, what did you feel?

Jerome opens the envelope and pulls out the sheet of paper inside. His hands shake as he unfolds it. He looks down without really reading, at first, just taking a moment to comprehend the feeling of a promise being kept, the feeling of not being let down, the feeling of warmth in his chest. He looks without reading, and he sees that the ink is smudged in some places, and when he looks a little closer he can make out that the discoloration of ink and paper happens in irregular, circular splatters. 

He is still just as disoriented and struck by the notion that he is worth tears as he had been last night.

His chest feels tight again. 

I don’t know the words to describe it, he thinks. I wish that I did, but I don’t. Maybe I did, once, but I forgot. You don’t remember information that you don’t use. You don’t remember the names of emotions that you don’t feel. 

His eyes finally begin to focus on the writing.

Jerome, the first line of the letter reads, I hope that you’re alright.

His lips twitch; a tentative sort of smile that feels strange on his face. Small. Genuine. A smile not meant to unsettle or charm or disarm others. A smile meant just for himself.

I hope that you’re alright too, he thinks, an emotion which he thinks might be similar to fondness unfurling inside of him. I hope that Theo is rotting in a fucking grave before he can ever get within easy reach of you again. Don’t let him get close to you, Bruce. Don’t let him get close.

**Jerome, I hope that you’re alright.**

**So much happened tonight. I don’t really know what to say, or to write about, or to think about, but I promised that I would write when I got home, so I am. I wonder if you are okay, right now, as I am writing this. I wonder if you will be okay when this letter gets to Arkham. I hope that you are. I really do hope that you are.**

**Thinking about the benefit is difficult, thinking about what you were doing and threatening to do is difficult. I’ve felt scared before. Powerless before. I don’t want to feel that way again. I don’t want to remember feeling that way. But there’s something about the time we shared, up on the stage, that I cannot forget. If I let myself forget the bad things that happened tonight, I would forget the good, too. I would forget that I saved you.**

**We turned, and I saw, and I pushed, and you fell. There was more than that, going on in my head, but it’s difficult to put it into words. I didn’t want you to die. I wanted to be brave. I wanted to do something. I did.**

**I didn’t freeze. I didn’t fail. I saved you. I saved you and I’m glad that I did. I’d do it again and I’m sorry that no one else ever did. I’m sorry that you’ve been hurt. I wish that saying sorry was enough to take away the sadness and pain and loneliness, even though I know it’s not. When I heard that you wanted to speak to me I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it wasn’t what happened. I thought that, maybe, you would tell me that what I’d done hadn’t mattered. But it mattered to us both, didn’t it? It mattered more than anything else that happened tonight, didn’t it?**

**I wish I knew what else to say. I wish that we’d had more time together.**

**I hope that you’re alright. Write me back. Don’t forget me.**

**I promise that I won’t forget you.**

**Bruce**

Jerome exhales shakily and carefully folds the letter back up.

Of course I won’t forget you, he thinks, mystified at the very idea of it. 

It did matter, he thinks, it did matter more than anything. 

He wants to write Bruce back soon, and he has everything that he needs to start, but…

There is a guard standing across the hallway who was not there before, casting short but frequent glances inside of his cell as if Jerome isn’t going to notice the attention. It would be unnerving if he were in the previous cell; no one in the rooms around him, no working cameras recording the hallway, no witnesses or evidence if he happened to turn up dead. But now that he’s stationed somewhere more secure it is more distracting than anything else, and Jerome…

Doesn’t want anyone to see him as he writes Bruce back. Doesn’t want anyone to read into what his expressions might mean, or guess at what might be going through his head whenever he pauses in order to find the right words. 

He stands up and the guard across the hall jerks, as if he’s surprised that Jerome has taken notice of him. If he is meant to be an assassin or a spy, he is not very good at it.

And Theo Galavan would be able to afford someone who was good at it. 

Just a regular guard, Jerome decides. A regular guard who keeps staring at him for some reason.

Jerome sets down the letter carefully and approaches the door of his cell, looming behind the barred window with a purposefully unaffected air. With Bruce he could afford to be open because that same openness was offered back to him, with Bruce he could be something that he had not been for years and years—

—because he was the only one, the only one, the only one—

—but he has no interest in sharing those parts of himself to anyone but the one who had saved him. The one who believed that his life was worth saving, even after everything that Jerome had done. 

“Can I help you?” His voice is harsh and lined with a mocking edge. It is what he knows best, especially in here. He is in Arkham again, and he has not been gone for long enough to forget the way that this place is run and the best ways to survive it. 

Although he thinks that he is not quite the same person as he was when he was taken.

The Jerome that was taken had never been saved before. The Jerome that was taken hadn’t cared enough about anyone to warn them or worry over them or hope that he was being gentle with them.

The guard shuffles closer slowly, as if scared of him. It’s amusing, in a way, to seemingly be feared like this when less than half a day ago Jerome had all but broken down from kind words and gentle touches. But then, only a handful of people knew about that. To the rest of Gotham he is exactly as he was before he was taken into custody, back when he was acting as a leader when really all he had ever been was a pawn. 

A sideshow freak driven by false promises of becoming a star. 

“Are you gonna speak.” He doesn’t bother disguising his boredom; he’d much rather be writing a letter than dealing with whatever this was supposed to be. “Or are you just gonna stare at me all day?”

There is a long moment of silence before the guard speaks.

“I heard that someone tried to off you this morning.” His eyes hold some kind of strange regard as they look Jerome over. Jerome wonders if this is some sort of weird new test. The guards in here did tend to make their own fun, in whatever ways they felt like. “It won’t happen again.”

Ha. Promises of protection were fleeting and worthless in here, especially promises from guards. Jerome rolls his eyes. 

“Right,” Jerome drawls. If he is too mocking, too insulting, he might end up with a black eye before therapy. “Good to know that some people actually attempt to do their jobs.” He steps away from the window, ending the conversation, and he turns to go back to where he’d left Bruce’s letter.

“Wait!”

When he looks back the guard’s eyes are wide, beseeching. 

“I want to wake up. I want to be free,” the guard whispers, an odd smile stretching out across his mouth. “Like you.” 

“Maybe you haven’t noticed, but I’m kind of the opposite of free right now,” Jerome says curtly, expression twisting into a mask of derision, and he turns away a second time. When he looks back through the window the guard is gone, and he reads through Bruce’s letter once more before he starts to plan out what to say in return. 

It isn’t until later that his own words come back to him. 

_Wake up! Why be a cog? Be free like us. Just remember, smile._

Weird, he thinks, but he doesn’t linger on it. Guards could say whatever mocking, degrading bullshit they wanted in order to get a reaction out of inmates. Jerome had run out of fingers to count the times a guard had said something about ‘mommy issues’ to his face the last time that he’d been here. The next time that Jerome saw him, he would ignore him. 

He had more important things to focus on, anyway.

With a tight chest and a racing mind, he puts pen to paper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just have this mental image of Jerome sitting in Arkham, so over the moon every time he gets a letter from his pen-pal that it takes him a little longer than it otherwise would have to realize that there are some people in there with him who seem really, _really_ into his broadcast from the GCPD.


End file.
